Awaiting the Resurrection: Fixing Our Eyes on Jesus

Saints are well-known figures in Church history. While you might not personally know every saint, their commitment to the faith and contributions are understood by their titles. Just as the saints who have come before us, we wait for the beauty of the final days and celebrate in the resurrection. Read an excerpt below from Lutheran Service Book: Companion to the Services to understand more about how we can rejoice with the saints of both the past and present. 

We Are All One Body in Christ

With all the saints who have gone before us in the faith and confession of Christ, and with all who believe and are baptized into Him, we are one Body in Christ Jesus, in heaven and on earth. We should be careful, then, not to make too sharp a distinction between the saints who have died and those who are still on their pilgrimage, whether alongside of us or elsewhere in the world. Those who have departed in the faith are not dead and gone but are with the Lord and are of one holy communion with us in Him. They rest from their labors while they also eagerly await with us the resurrection of all flesh and the consummation of all things (Revelation 6:9–11; 14:13).

We live and die in the hope of the resurrection because Christ is “the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25–26). He is the firstborn from the dead and the firstfruits of the new creation that He should be the first of many brothers (Romans 8:29; 1 Corinthians 15:20–23; Colossians 1:18; Revelation 1:5). For this reason, we wait with confidence and actively confess the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting since it is already begun in the Body of Christ. As we share His cross and resurrection by our Holy Baptism (Romans 6:3–9), so do we confess His cross and resurrection in the face of the grave as we bury our loved ones and as we remember the saints.

What Are the Festivals of the Saints? 

The festivals of the saints are celebrations of the resurrection, rooted in the bodily reality of the incarnation of the Son of God (1 Corinthians 15). We remember and learn from their life in the body because their bodies are redeemed for life everlasting in the body of Christ Jesus. So do their works follow after them, as the fruits of their faith and the faithfulness of their Lord. The example of the saints is not bland or generic but concrete, tangible, personal, and specific. They are living stained glass windows through whom Christ shines upon us in a panoply of colors, for He has manifested Himself and His glory in them, and His Spirit has been at work in them, bearing the fruits of His cross in them after its own kind (2 Thessalonians 1:10; Ephesians 2:10; Galatians 2:20).

We remember the saints, give thanks to God for them, and learn from their example because we recognize the life and Spirit of Christ Jesus in their lives of faith and love. The Head of the Church is manifested in the members of His Body, and He is glorious in all His saints. As He has redeemed them with His holy and precious blood, by His innocent suffering and death, from every tribe and tongue and people and nation (Revelation 5:9), so do they praise and magnify Him in life and death, in the sure and certain hope of His resurrection from the dead. And across this great multitude of saints that no one could number, Christ is all and in all (Revelation 7:9; Colossians 3:11).

In the perseverance of the martyrs and in the steadfast faith of all the saints and confessors, we perceive the gracious presence of Christ Jesus. That point is acknowledged and emphasized in the Martyrdom of Polycarp and in other early martyr accounts. We recognize the same principle in those who were not put to death for their Christian faith and confession but who bore the cross in whatever place and whatever ways the Lord called them to glorify His name.

As the Scriptures instruct us, we are encouraged by the example of the saints who have gone before us in the faith, who are with the Lord and now rest from their labors (Revelation 14:13). We are strengthened by their fellowship in the Body of Christ so that we do not grow weary or lose heart but “run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1–2). With those who have suffered for His name’s sake in the past, we also are conformed to the image of His cross so that we might “know Him and the power of His resurrection” (Philippians 3:10). By the evidence and testimony of so great a cloud of witnesses, we do know the hope of His calling, the riches of the glory of His inheritance in all the saints, and the surpassing greatness of His power to all who believe (Hebrews 12:1; Ephesians 1:18–19).

Portions excerpted from Lutheran Service Book: Companion to the Services © 2022 Concordia Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Scripture: ESV ^®.

As we rejoice with the saints and learn from their history, spend time with them in a daily devotional that follows the Church Year.